Establishing a harmonic work environment isn’t easy, and I learned that you can only achieve harmony once you stop trying to and worrying too much about it. When I started as a manager a couple of years ago I remember experiencing plenty of conflict every day caused by a changing leadership team, inadequate staffing levels, and unexperienced managers (myself included). It took us about twelve month to get to a setting that allowed us to improve and accomplish greatness as a team. I recall coming to work and I could not believe to experience a day without any conflict, and I clearly remember my hope and concern that it would not last and stay like that… almost to a point that I wished I would be able to avoid any possible conflict only to guarantee this just achieved harmony. But it never worked, I wasn’t able to turn a blind eye either, and the conflict didn’t stop.

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I came to understand that you can only accomplish harmony by not trying to, by not avoiding conflict, and by not accepting poor performance. If you don’t give honest constructive feedback, set clear expectations, and hold people accountable to their responsibilities, people will always try to take advantage of each other, take short cuts or argue for their personal favor and see themselves as the victim at the end of the day. Only when you understand that it is your responsibility as a leader to maintain that harmony by drawing a line consistently, facing uncomfortable conflict, you’ll be able to work towards a consistent and ‘fair’ work environment that treats everyone equally. Once you stop worrying, if you are going to have a good ‘harmonic’ day or not, and just focus on doing your job and the right thing, you’ll be happy and will establish the closet thing to harmony.

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